What to strive for in a relationship? Who is in charge in the relationship? Probably, many will answer that it depends on a particular area. When the question is about your relationship with your partner, what will be your answer? Are you the leader or partner? There is not always a clear answer to this question, and that’s okay.
Given this question, the answer often depends on the financial factor. Often, the one who earns money is the main one in the relationship. This person brings money to the family, and can fully dispose of these funds. The financial side of the issue, as you know, greatly affects other areas of life.
What to strive for in a relationship?
The old model of exercising power
At a time when the emancipation of women was not so active, the relationship of heterosexual couples was based on the fact that the woman looked after the household, created home comfort, and the man earned money for further existence. This is the old standard that has been in effect for a long time, right up to the present day. This is a typical model of the distribution of rights, duties and a dominant position, where the man was the main one. Even if the head of the family gave all the money to the woman, she did not have the right to fully dispose of them – only with the consent of her husband. After all, he’s the boss!
There was another criterion by which the leader of the family was determined. Power belonged to someone who comes from a more noble and status family. But this rule only works if both partners value social status, even if this factor does not affect the life of the couple in any way.
Intimacy Addiction Manipulation?
At present, when partners have a more or less equal division of rights and responsibilities, when both have the right to occupy leadership positions at work, there can be a serious imbalance in intimate terms. The one who wants to do more (less) of this … to some extent depends on the second person.
The difference in temperaments in bed is one of the most common reasons for turning to sexologists. Most of them have perfect similarities in all aspects of family life, but differences in love preferences bring everything to naught. Each of the partners may have different preferences in terms of television programs, pastime, types of recreation, meals. These things can be customized if desired. But intimacy with each other cannot be adapted in any way. This is where the dominance of one partner and the subordination of the other arises.
Sometimes the difference in the need for intimacy is quite natural. But sometimes this imbalance is a deliberate power grab by those who feel overwhelmed in other areas of the relationship. In such a relationship, the person who wants more intimacy is completely dependent on the one who wants it less. Perhaps the female “I have a headache” is some kind of manipulation? Revenge for the suppression of female nature by a man in other aspects of relationships? A partner with a higher libido may feel resentful because his partner does not share the same.
What conclusions follow from this?
Nothing can be done about differences in the level of libido or differences in financial gain, which in some couples are identical with power. To be honest, there is no way to influence inequality in other spheres of life. Instead of digging into it, calculating who actually has the greater range of power, it’s better to focus on what everyone does best. If each person independently chooses his sphere of influence (not on his own whim, but for objective reasons), then in the end it will turn out that everyone dominates in his own sphere. This is what equality is based on.
What to strive for in a relationship?
